Thursday, November 8

World Youth 2012 Kicks Off

Town Square in Maribor

The World Youth Chess Championship 2012 began this afternoon in Maribor, the second largest city of the former Yugoslav republic of Slovenia. Out of nearly 1600 juniors from around the world, a record 87 came from the USA, including 13 from Northern California. Through November 18, players will compete for 11 rounds in sections segregated by age (U8, U10, U12, U14, U16 and U18) as well as gender (Open and Girls).

Board, set and clock are all provided.

The Bay Area has a rich history of success at this tournament. In the past five years, three local talents have finished at the top of the world for their age! Daniel Naroditsky captured gold for U12 in 2007; Sam Shanklandshared first for U18 in 2008; and Steven Zierk took gold for U18 in 2010. Daniel and Steven both now hold the IM title while Sam rocketed to Grandmaster and an impressive 2600 international rating. Who will step up to continue the magic in 2012?

Here are the local participants in Maribor:

U12 - SM Sam Sevian (top seed)

U12 - NM Cameron Wheeler (fifth seed)

U12 - Kevin Moy

U12 - Vignesh Panchanatham

U12 - Siddharth Banik

G12 - Ashritha Eswaran

U10 - Rayan Taghizadeh (ninth seed)

G10 - Joanna Liu

U8 - Ben Rood

U8 - Milind Maiti

U8 - Balaji Daggupati

U8 - Kelvin Jiang

G8 - Zhiyi Wang

Team USA hopes to build on the results from last year: one gold and one silver, with ten players finishing in the top 10 for each division. This year's squad appears to be strongest in the U12 section, with SM Sam Sevian and FM Jeffrey Xiong rated at the very top of the entire field. They are not alone; indeed 14 of the top 40 in U12 wear the red, white and blue. In the U10 section, NM Praveen Balakrishnan and 2011 U8 gold medalist FM Awonder Liang are both ranked in the top 5. The top contenders among the girls include Ashritha Eswaran of Northern California in U12 and WFM Annie Wang of Southern California in U10.

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Check here for tournament reports and the latest chess news from Michael "fpawn" Aigner. Find out where fpawn has played recently. Emphasis on:1. fpawn's students and friends,2. Northern California chess events,3. national or international chess news (especially involving local players).Say hi when you surf in, but please keep comments clean and sign your name.

Who Is Fpawn

Mr. Aigner remains an active chess tournament player, coach and community supporter in Northern California. He refuses to surrender to little munchkins trying to eat his rating points. He firmly believes that chess teachers should practice what they preach, even if that means competing head-to-head against students and their peers. In that spirit, he aspires to reaching 2300 again after several years at or near the 2200 floor.